Tools for Polarized Times: StoryTables and Conversation Cafes. StoryTables are carefully crafted listening-to-learn events. This community practice is outlined with helpful “how-to’s” and then combined with the additional community practice of Conversation Cafés. Get to know these two community practices and how they could help your organization navigate and stay connected in polarized times.
StoryTables. Community Practices for Polarized Times Part I.
Penny: Welcome, everyone, to this new episode for the Diversity and Inclusion for All podcast of Calvin University. Today's topic is about StoryTables, and we're looking at story tables as a community practice for polarized times.
Michelle: It is not the time for debate. It's also really not a time for discussion because we're not trying to persuade anyone or inform or win someone over to our position. It really is about dialog. It really is about listening, listening well to what someone has to say and not where you suspect that they might be.
Penny: My special guest today is a beloved colleague at Calvin University, Michelle Lloyd Paige. She is a professor of sociology and the executive associate to the president for diversity and inclusion. Michelle and I have worked on a whole lot of things together. And one thing that she brought to my attention already in 2019 is StoryTables. So I invited her here today to have a conversation with me about the practice of StoryTables, how we've been trying to do this at Calvin, what some of our struggles and maybe little successes have been, and how it might be helpful for your organizations, houses of worship or community groups as a community practice that can really help us navigate our current moment in the United States, which is very much characterized by a lot of polarization. And so, without further ado, I'm going to welcome Michelle.
Michelle: Thank you for having me on the show. I am excited to be here. You are the fountain of ideas. So, I find it a little funny that “Michelle, you were the one that got me interested in this,” because I think I actually got Penny excited about something that is so cool, because usually you are bringing something to me.
But I was reading some material from Fuller Theological Seminary, and there was an article in their magazine about StoryTables. And then I went to their website and saw it. And the first StoryTable that they had was around a conversation about race.
And what fascinated me about it, it was something similar to a fishbowl exercise, but it wasn't the same thing. And so they had invited six to eight people who had a lived experience about the topic, about about race. And they invited the people to have this facilitated conversation, but it really was emphasizing conversation. So there was a moderator, but the conversation was to be really organic. And it was over a meal. And so the people at the table so literally around a dinner table. So they were eating and talking. But then there were people who were invited to bear witness to the conversation. The people who were watching also had something to eat because we just learn more and build community over over food, over a meal. And the people in the audience are not allowed to ask questions. And when the event is over, they're not allowed to run up to someone who is sitting around the table saying, OK, when you said this, can you help me figure out what you were trying to say or I have a question. People are not allowed to do that.
And I thought that that would be a good way for us to facilitate some honest conversations, because sometimes, you know, people are invited to share their story, but they might not share the fullness of their story because they're anticipating what someone in the audience might think of them or say or have a “yeah, but,” to.
And so with the story table, we invited guests there. They have the questions that we plan to ask, but it's really organic and they're sharing their experiences, their personal experience. This is not a lecture. It is not an action-setting activity. It is really talking about someone who lives experience with a particular topic. That's what I found so intriguing about this, is that it lessens the opportunities for drama, for pain because of someone's response. And it really created kind of like this safe space for individuals to share their experiences without fear of what someone might think or say, because there's not an opportunity for an audience to respond or to contact them or to, you know, corner them by the punch bowl and say, yeah, but have you thought about this? None of that happened. And so it creates an environment for the participants to think and feel a bit safer in the conversation, so that's what was so intriguing for me. And I thought that that would be a a wonderful way to introduce conversation about race and about other potential conflicting topics or topics that have some conflict associated with it. I thought this would be a wonderful way to get that information out there, creating safety for the people who are brave enough to share. And to get the message across. So that's that's what attracted me about it.
Penny: Yeah, I really love the idea that the set up of the story table where the audience is there to lean in, listen, and learn, but not to wait to the end to ask that pointed question or something.
Michelle: Yeah.
Penny: I feel like that helps the storytellers feel a little safer and share stories because it's just it's a little safer. And they can sort of share the stories that help set the context, that help us understand their perspectives in a way that they might feel hesitant to do in a different, you know, more debate oriented or a panel discussion where there's a Q&A at the end. Yeah. It's also helpful for the audience to say, you know what, this is a listening event, because then you come with different expectations and potentially hopefully with a different mindset.
Michelle: And we work hard to well, we didn’t have a full meal. We did get some snacks. And honestly, sitting around the table talking and eating at the same time can be a little bit challenging. But we also have the table set up as if it was, you know, just setting the ambiance so that it wasn't, OK, here's this business, this conference table. You all are sitting on one side facing the audience, talking to them. No, the people were sitting around the table talking with one another and around the table that was aesthetically pleasing. So that looked like, yeah, we're just around kitchen table. But having experiences about this topic and we're coming together to share about what it's like to be in our skin about this.
Penny: Yeah. So remember, in the fall of 2019, Calvin University was able to host two different story tables. And the first one was on interfaith engagement and work, and what that is and what that looks like, and what it is not. And the second one was on withering weathering and witnessing race and racism. And I thought both of those topics were topics where some of the audience knew a lot or had already heard quite a bit. But it was new for some of our audience, too. And so it was a great chance to just really open up space in the community to hear stories from different people who were either stakeholders or had lived experiences, as you mentioned, that were relevant to the topic to help us understand it better.
One thing that I really like about story tables, especially for our current moment in our country, is how it can be a space to help us deal with all the polarization. I was just talking with a colleague, too, who said, you know, I am a certain political leaning, and 95 percent of my Facebook friends are the same and I don't hear the other side of the story except in sound bites or really kind of nasty comments in a Facebook post.
But StoryTable can actually be an opportunity to listen to the stories that we don't hear that aren't in our echo chambers.
Michelle: Right. They can be, especially because that was our intention, especially for the story tables that we had planned this past academic year to bring people together who have differing opinions but who are willing to engage in a dialog and not a debate. And that's what is so key about the StoryTable. It is not the time for debate. It's also really not a time for discussion because we're not trying to persuade anyone or inform or win someone over to our position. It really is about dialog. It really is about listening, listening well to what someone has to say. And if you can find common ground, that's fine. But if you can't find common ground, then at least you have an understanding of where the differences really are and not where you suspect that they might be.
Penny: I really like how you make that distinction by trying to listen to other people's stories, to understand where your similarities, the differences are, but just to really understand them as a person. I feel like StoryTables as an opportunity to practice, develop a little bit of empathy and respect for other voices.
It's not to come to some agreement, but if I can hear the stories that contextualize the perspectives and opinions, then I'm in a better position, just develop a little bit of empathy and respect for that person, even if I don't agree.
Michelle: Yes.
Penny: Yeah. So I know we talked about planning different events with diverse opinions in the room. And I actually want to say that I've done a little bit more looking around and there are like two different at least two different ways to go about it.
So you can have like a series of StoryTables, let's just say. So in week one, you have a story table where perhaps there's a bunch of liberal or progressive voices all around the table. And then in week two, you have another story table where there's conservative voices around the table.
Or you could choose to try to have them some of both two sides of the issue at the same table. You just have to be really clear about the ground rules for that storytelling time.
Michelle: You know, and that just shows you have some creativity. So what you have to think about, what do you want to have happen, what's the outcome, what do you want to be the results and then have some creativity about how to organize it, keeping keeping to the basic principles that what is this about? This is about creating space for dialog. This is about leaning in and listening. This is about suspending our assumptions and our judgments. This is about if you're in the audience, keeping your mouth shut and listening, really listening. Because when you know that you're not going to have an opportunity to ask a question, whether you're writing it on a card and passing up, you're not going to be able to do that. So, in a sense, you are forced to really listen.
Penny: I like what you said about flexibility, I think COVID really forced us to be pretty flexible, too. We had some story tables planned and we had a grant actually to run a workshop on story tables, and we had to kind of put it on hold. But you were able to organize a virtual StoryTable-like event shortly after we went into lockdown in the spring of 2020.
I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about that process and kind of maybe ways that you felt it was successful and perhaps ways that you wish it could have been different.
Michelle: With everything being shut down or not being able to come together, something that we wanted to do. It was a part of a more public event, a stand against racism event. And we partnered with a group called the Antioch podcast who does regular podcasting on topics of biblical anti-racism. And so we partnered with them to say, OK, can we do this virtually? Can we do a live recording with these story table principles in place? So can we gather people together virtually to have conversations about this particular topic, about how, you know, we why we're standing up against racism? Or what does that journey look like?
And it worked it worked well, but we learned some things along the way. One, the the intimacy wasn't the same as if we were in a physical place. Right, because you got six faces on a screen. And I think we had even more the six faces on the screen.
Even though we tell people that we're not taking comments, people were still trying to submit comments, things like that. So that wasn't we just kind of ignored some of them.
So the upside is that we could share it more broadly. People felt comfortable. The downside is that we lost that kind of kitchen table feel. And that's hard to reproduce in a virtual way. So that's the downside of it. But you sometimes have to make adjustments, and that's the adjustment that we need to go virtual. But yeah, that's what we did.
Penny: I think, too, that the listening in virtually is really different. I know that when I'm even when I join meetings, zoom meetings, instead of being in-person, especially if I turn my camera off, I engage differently.
So I think it was also a different experience for the audience. And I'm looking forward to a post-COVID, in-person opportunities again to host StoryTables. I feel like it's we just got started in our community practice of doing story tables to gain some traction and then COVID hit.
So I'm hopeful that we can get back to developing and offering story table events on a regular basis so that people kind of get used to that.
Michelle: Something else that we did with the especially with the one the one on race is that we offered Conversation Cafés. We we took another practice Conversation cafés and married it to StoryTables, because with StoryTables, the audience doesn't get to speak. They don't get to ask questions. They don't get to add their own story or their own narrative to what has taken place.
So with Conversation Cafés that followed the week later. Or a couple of days later, I can't remember which, but…. So you can you have options. A week later, a couple of days later. So the Conversation Cafés are spaces for people to have dialog where there is no more than eight people around the table. There's there's a process because everyone at the table for the Conversation Café has an opportunity to speak, so there's a topic that you're going to be speaking on. It's not a debate. You're not trying to persuade anyone that you're right or they're wrong. It's not a call to action. It really is a space to continue a conversation and to engage in a conversation with people who might be different than you or who think differently than you.
And so the conversation begins with everyone going around the table or the space that there are. And just briefly making a comment on the topic. So the topic could be inter-group dialog or cross-cultural engagement. And so then you have someone and usually there's a talking object. So a person has a talking object and that can be whatever you have handy. If you want to get real fancy, you can get a talking stick. But, you know, it could be the Beanie Baby that's sitting on top of your your your desk or it could be the fountain pen that you have or could be a coffee mug that that you have. It can really be any of those kinds of things. But, you know, you pass that. So the person who has the talking object is the person who's speaking. When they finish speaking, they pass it on. And in that first round, no one is is asking questions. The person is just making their statement, their brief comment, and then it goes on to the next person.
And so once they've gone around once, then there's a second round. And then the second round, the person who has the talking object adds a little more depth to what they had said previous. So they're not commenting on anyone else's comments. They are just adding a bit more depth and reflection to their own previous comment. And then after the second round, then it's opened up to dialog. You could use a talking object or maybe there's a feeling you have people know how to orchestrate and not talk over one another and all that. And then there's a conclusion. And the conclusion in the final round is that everyone takes a moment to reflect on what they learned from participating in this. So how was their thinking when they entered into the Conversation Café and what is their thinking now at the present moment? Has there been any shift in the way that they are thinking as a result of the conversation? And if so, how might that have occurred? And if you know that, then just kind of what was the benefit of being in the process of the conversation café's. So it's a structured way of saying, let's have a conversation, there's not a right or wrong, but let's do a follow-up. So we introduce this conversation café as a follow up to our StoryTable events to give people who had made the investment to come to the event, to give them an opportunity to participate in the event as well.
Penny: Conversation Café is to… ,in our experience, was this chance for our verbal processors to be able to process a little bit with others. And that can be an important thing, too. And that's something that the StoryTable idea by itself doesn't offer. It does one thing the listening to the stories, understanding stories as the context for opinions and perspectives. But we felt like, oh, we could combine this. And this was another one of your great ideas. We could combine this with an opportunity then for people in a structured way that makes things still pretty safe for people to to process a little bit, to ask some questions, to talk about where they are at in their understanding or journey related to a potentially hot topic.
Michelle: And it's not for people to be fixed, right, so they're not entering the say, oh, I'm just such a horrible person, then everybody says, oh, but you're a horrible person. It's not about that, but also what’s so good about a conversation café, not only does it allow a space for people to process their own thoughts, right. Because in round one, they're sharing their thoughts. Round two, they’re deepening their thoughts, and then they're engaging in dialog. But it helps to have the space to have conversation that’s structured. But then we get away from the anonymity of Facebook and other social media outlets. It gets us away from the cancel culture. “You said that, I'm totally writing you off.”
It's a great way for us to help build connections too really. Because if you're limited to only eight people, right, that's up to eight people. You could have one as small as four people or six people. I personally like the six people, six person size. You're looking at one another and you're building connection, one just by being proximate to other people, listening to other people, adding your voice to the conversation, to the mix. And so because of this connection, because the relationships that you're able to begin planting seeds, you can see commonalities, you can see differences, you can feel it, you can see the expressions on people's faces. Then it's it's a way to lead people into more curiosity and to more learning. It helps people to know that it's OK to suspend judgments in this particular space, because we're all here to learn and we're all here to share our story.
Penny: When we combined the StoryTable with the Conversation Café, I just a couple of things that I know that we did that I thought had potential to be very successful in the future. We actually could advertise at the end of the StoryTable that there was going to be a conversation café the following week.
And then we're on a campus community at Calvin University. And so we hosted the conversation cafes during a lunch period. So people in a room that was our own room, but in the cafeteria area, so people could go get their lunch, then come to the conversation cafe and enjoy their lunch while we did the Conversation Café, kind of, you know, different stages of of conversation and sharing. So I thought that that was actually a really nice way to follow up with the story table, to create a space for people to process a little bit verbally.
I also felt like it was one of a few different things we were trying to do at that time to build community. I feel like, like you said, there is a cancel culture, there's an anonymity, sometimes when we engage in topics via social media, but when you're actually around a table eating your lunch with some colleagues from work, or maybe some people that are in your house of worship community or your small group, it's a very different experience and it really does help build community.
Michelle: Yeah, and I'm glad that we are in conversations about how what we've learned from our entry into this and how we are looking forward to continuing this process. So we're still … we haven't figured it all out, but we are excited about this, the possibilities of StoryTables. So we we had some lined up for last year, and it didn't work because of all the restrictions. But looking forward to getting back to that in person, because we tried to do it virtually. It worked, but not as well as the in-person one. And so we're looking back to getting to the in-person StoryTables and to host Conversation Cafés.
And, Penny, you don't know this yet, but I was already planning to have some standalone conversation cafes at a set point every month just to continue to create this space to have dialog, because I feel like this past year, because of physical distancing, there has been a level of social distancing as well. And this road back to coming together to speaking in person can little be a little challenging because we can have forgotten, okay, so how do we talk to someone in person? And so wanting to create these monthly conversation cafes for people to practice coming back together in community, not in a big space, not in a lecture, but in these small, intimate spaces where here's a topic, let's talk about it.
And so the first couple of ones aren't going to be about contested issues. It's going to be the first one is probably going to be about last year.
Penny: Mm hmm.
Michelle: That's just the thing. Right. So it can be just as vague as that about last year. Let's let's talk about let's talk about last year, because I think it's important for people to be able to process what was last year like, and then maybe the next one is going to be and then about this year. What are we hoping to do just to kind of ease people in, to introduce the principal, to introduce the process so that we can build up comfort in how do we talk with one another so that we can talk about things like race relations. We can talk about sexual orientation. We can talk about political perspectives, we can talk about those things. But to to build up our muscles to be able to do that.
Penny: I think that's so important for our current moment. We are so polarized and we can't agree on the facts. We can't agree on the news that we should be listening to. And so so one of the things about living in a diverse society is that we live with others that have opinions different from us. But if we’re comfortable, our communities are really homogeneous, then we're not really living in and benefiting from the diversity that is part of our broader communities.
And I feel like StoryTables and conversation cafes are practices that can help us benefit. We can still be a community. We can still work towards being a society where we live in equal dignity and mutual loyalty, despite our different opinions on so many issues.
Michelle: And, you know, it's all about how can we continue to build community? How can we build a space where everyone feels like they have a place to speak into and that their voices and their experiences matter.
We want to create that sense of welcome and belonging and dialog. Is this one of the ways that we get there? So thank you for allowing me to be on this journey with you.
Penny: Thank you so much.
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